Just Jennifer

The Furies by Natalie Haynes (St. Martin’s Press, August 2014)

Alex Morris, an up and coming director in the London theatre world, has come to Edinburgh from London to heal, and to hide, after her fiancé was murdered.  She takes a job teaching drama to a group of troubled teens.  While Alex is grateful to her friend Robert for offering her a chance to be away from London, she is not sure she is the best suited person to teach teenagers who are in this school because no one else will have them.  Her most difficult charges are the fourth-year students, a class of five, three girls and two boys, who have individual challenges that Alex could never imagine.  After talking to them, she decides to frame the course with the Greek tragedies, not realizing how deeply these students will take the plays to heart and how much they need someone to show just a little concern, even if it’s leaving an old hoody around, pretending someone left it, for a teen boy who is always cold and whose grandparents don’t seem concerned enough to dress him properly.  When Alex suggests that the students keep a diary, one of them takes the suggestion a little too much to heart and chronicles an obsession with Alex and her own tragedy.  Slowly Alex draws her five students out, as they do her, but life begins to imitate life with tragic consequences.  An emotional and assured debut, that compels you to keep reading  as it mixes psychological suspense with compassion and characters that you will care about even if you don’t particularly like them.